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Abstract

The idea that indigenous Amazonian societies have been and are essentially egalitarian has been criticized in recent years. This essay critiques frameworks for the study of power in lowland South America by examining diachronic and synchronic variation in Marubo political organization. First, I analyze change over time in Marubo politics and how it relates to population fluctuations linked to contact situations. Based on this analysis, I argue that the small, atomized villages that twentieth-century anthropologists perceived as typifying indigenous Amazonia were products of the historical processes of political organization. Next, I show that leaders of different Marubo villages range from powerless to powerful, and that all positions in this range are acceptable to most Marubo. Thus, it is misleading to label the Marubo as either “egalitarian” or “hierarchical.” Based on this analysis, I argue that labeling indigenous Amazonian societies as egalitarian or hierarchical is a highly problematic endeavor, and that labeling all of Amazonia as egalitarian is clearly inaccurate. The debate on power in Amazonia should be redirected, away from efforts to classify the entirety of Amazonia, towards efforts to understand Amazonian groups on their own terms.